It feels like it has been a solid hot minute since we’ve seen Christian Bale in full-on action mode. Of late, the most notable appearances from the actor have been his turn as a sleazy, overweight fortune hunter in American Hustle, as a man walking around empty hallways making out with people in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups, and as a wacky financial analyst in the Oscar-charmer The Big Short.
But it seems like we’re getting a long overdue taste of Bale in smashing-heads-rescuing-people-hero-mode with The Promise, a film that just debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. Though we're not seeing him in a way we’ve ever seen him before.
The Promise is an epic historical drama in the vein of old-school classics like Doctor Zhivago, and though it set during the hectic landscape of Europe in WWI, it tells a story that is rarely known outside the most hardcore history classes. Oscar Isaac headlines the cast as a young medical student who travels to Constantinople just in time to witness the Ottoman Empire’s systematic genocide of the Armenian population, one of the many atrocities committed in this theater of war. Bale stars as Christopher Myers, an American reporter who gets caught in a love triangle with Isaac and his Armenian fiancée, thus ensuring drama on a personal and grand scale. As the saying goes, shit gets real.
Stay tuned for the official release date of The Promise.
For more of the latest film trailers, check out the violent new clip for Free Fire, another film that just swept the Toronto International Film Festival.